The Arrow of Two Worlds
by aehawthorne
Summary: When Robert accidentally ends up on Earth-1, he isn't worried. After all, it isn't the first time he's found himself alone, isolated and cut off from his usual resources. The last thing he expects is to run into the likeness of his long dead son, who turns out to a hero in his own right, the Arrow of this other Earth
1. Chapter 1

"I suppose you're here to try and bring me in," Laurel said coolly, coming slowly to a halt. Robert faltered. And here he'd thought he was being stealthy. He didn't answer her.

"And what makes you think you'll have any more luck with that than everyone else who's tried?" Laurel asked without turning around.

"Laurel, it's me," Robert said, switching off his voice modulator so she'd recognize his voice, then pushing down his hood and removing his mask. The time had come to enact his plan. "It's Robert." At that, Laurel at last turned to face him.

"Well," she said dryly, arching an eyebrow. "You were certainly the last person I expected to be under that hood."

"I need you to come with me," Robert said. "For the safety of everyone in this city." Laurel laughed.

"Your approach was to appeal to my humanity?" she asked. "You're a lot of things, Robert, but I never thought you were _stupid._"

"Laurel, _please_," Robert begged, holding his hands out toward her in a placating gesture. It was hard to look non-threatening when he was still holding his bow in one hand, but he did his best. "_See reason_."

"We're well past _reason_," Laurel snarled. The coldness in her voice sent a shiver down Robert's spine. It was clear to him now that this- devoid of morals, compassion, and empathy- was not the Laurel he knew. He suspected _that_ Laurel had died the day she'd gotten her powers. "If you gave a damn about _reason_ you'd hang up that hood and go home to your family instead of running around pretending to be a hero." Robert didn't react. That particular barb had been thrown at him so many times by so many people that it had ceased to have any effect on him.

"You've hurt people-" he said, trying again.

"Do you really think I _care_?" Laurel interjected.

"You cause chaos wherever you go," Robert went on. "I'm just trying to keep the damage contained."

"Oh _please_," Laurel said scornfully. "We both know what 'containment' really means. I'm not going to let you put me in a cage, Robert." Robert didn't bother to point out that he wouldn't be the one doing the cageing- he lacked the facilities necessary to hold a metahuman safely. Instead, he would merely be handing her off to someone who did.

"Please," he said, trying it one last time. "Just let me stop this. Before anyone else gets hurt."

"You were like a father to me once, Robert," Laurel said, softening slightly, and for just a moment Robert caught a glimpse of the old her. "You gave me somewhere to go and someone to turn to when I'd lost everything, and I'll always be grateful to you for that. That's the only reason you're still alive. But any connection between us died with Oliver." _That_ barb landed- Robert felt a sharp stab of pain in his heart at the reminder that his only son lay dead somewhere at the bottom of the North China Sea.

"If you come after me again," Laurel continued, and any hint of the old her vanished, "I _will _kill you." She shifted her stance, and Robert, recognizing what was about to happen, ducked out of the way a split second before she let loose with her cry, her intent clearly being to use to buy herself time to make her getaway. He wasn't quite fast enough, and the shockwave from Laurel's cry caught him in the shoulder, sending him spinning through the air, his bow knocked free of his grip. He slammed into a wall and then into the ground. He righted himself with a groan in time to see the end of Laurel's long black coat disappear around a corner. Without even a moment's hesitation, Robert gave chase. It didn't matter that Laurel threatened to kill him- she had to be stopped. Coercion hadn't worked, which left him with no other but to use force.

Pausing to pick up his bow from where it had fallen, Robert hauled himself up the side of the nearest building and onto the roof, because tracking Laurel through the narrow alleyways through which she ran was easier from above and also because it made it harder for her to detect his pursuit the way she had last time.

When he managed to get ahead of Laurel, Robert threw himself down from the roof and hit the ground in a roll, coming up standing in the middle of the alleyway, blocking Laurel's path. She stuttered to a halt, eyes narrowing as she contemplated her next move.

"I told you I would kill you if you came after me again," she reminded him, voice icy.

"I don't care if you do," Robert said, drawing back his bow and leveling an arrow at her. "You have to be stopped."

"It's too late for that," Laurel said, settling once more into the stance she used to minimize the backlash that came with using her cry. Before she could unleash it on him for a second time, however, a swirling blue vortex that Robert recognized as an interdimensional portal like the ones that had been popping up in and around Central City recently opened up behind her. Out of it stepped the black suited and masked speedster known as Zoom, blue lightning crackling around him.

"I require your services," he snarled in his strange distorted voice, grabbing Laurel by the upper arm. Before either she or Robert could react, Zoom started to drag her backward, through the breach he'd just come through. Robert didn't know what possessed him to do it, what made him think he had any chance of catching a speedster, but somehow he knew that if Zoom got away with Laurel, bad things would happen wherever he was taking her, so he gave chase. He reached for Laurel just as Zoom stepped through the breach, and the two of them disappeared through it. Robert stumbled forward, recovering from the momentum of his failed grab for Laurel, and immediately noticed that something felt… _off_. He glanced behind him and realized why- the breach was gone. Without even noticing, he'd chase Zoom and Laurel through it, and it had closed behind him, leaving him on some other Earth. Home was far behind him now, and he had no way to return to it. He was trapped.


	2. Chapter 2

Robert wasn't worried. After all, this wasn't the first time he'd found himself alone and cut off from his usual resources. Of course, he hadn't been _totally _alone on Lian Yu- at least, not at first- but nevertheless, he'd spent five years learning how to survive on nothing but his wits and his skill and his will to live. That knowledge hadn't left him when he'd returned home.

The first thing he needed to do was get to a high vantage point so he could get the lay of the land and figure out where exactly on this Earth he had ended up. With that in mind, he climbed up onto the roof of the nearest building and scanned the city's skyline, searching for any familiar landmarks. Off in the distance, he spotted the slanted triangular spires of STAR Labs. So he was in this Earth's Central City, then. As much as he wanted to, Robert didn't have time to try and figure out how he'd ended up there when he'd been in Starling when he'd chased Zoom and Laurel through the breach- he had to find them and stop them before either of them could cause chaos, Laurel in particular.

As Robert moved from rooftop to rooftop, keeping an eye on the streets below, he half expected to see mayhem and havoc wherever he went, metahumans overrunning the streets and doing battle with the city's ordinary citizens- since Zoom had been snatching up metahumans ever since that singularity had opened up in the skies above Central City and this was apparently where he'd been taking them- but everything was quiet. More disheartening was the fact that there was not even a single sign of either Zoom or Laurel. Robert didn't want to think about how far a speedster like Zoom could have gotten in the perhaps minute and a half or so it had taken him to follow him through the breach.

As Robert continued to prowl along the rooftops of this other Central City, hunting for his quarry, he spotted a red streak racing through the streets. He brightened. So there was a Flash on this Earth. That was good to know.

"Jay!" he called out as the streak sped by below him, but it was moving too fast to hear him and didn't respond. Or maybe the Flash of this Earth wasn't Jay Garrick. There was really no way to know without asking someone, and he didn't have time for that.

Shaking aside his musings about what might be different on this Earth, as they would only distract him, Robert quickly refocused on the task at hand. He prowled the rooftops until his legs ached and his heavy boots felt like lead weights attached to his feet, putting what felt like miles beneath his heels, but still he found nothing, no trace, no _hint_ of Laurel or Zoom. It was getting late, the shadows stretching out into evening, the sun becoming an orange ball hanging low in the sky as it sank below the hills on the horizon. Robert realized he should probably find somewhere to hole up for the night. Dressed as he was, he wasn't exactly inconspicuous. He didn't know if there was an Arrow on this Earth, but if there was, he didn't want to be mistaken for him. It would attract far more attention than he was comfortable with.

Managing to find an empty, condemned building, Robert crept inside. His only company was a homeless person and a couple of junkies, the latter moving off to some other haunt as it got to be full dark. With a sigh, Robert lowered himself to the building's concrete floor, groaning as his aching joints protested the motion. It made him wonder if maybe Moira was right about him being too old for this. With another sigh, he did his best to push any thoughts of Moira and home from his mind and settled into a restless sleep.

The next day, Robert resumed his search, ignoring the hunger gnawing at his belly and the exhaustion dragging at his limbs. He was used to pushing himself to his physical limits- and even beyond them- in the pursuit of justice. This was nothing new.

By midafternoon, he was beginning to give up hope. Pounding the pavement was getting him nowhere. He couldn't even be sure that Zoom and Laurel were still _in_ Central City, but he didn't know what else to do. He let out a growl of frustration and paced in a tight, frantic circuit on the rooftop on which he stood. Never, not once, in the three years since he'd returned from Lian Yu had he ever felt this useless.

Just as he was ready to quit and accept that he'd have to start building a new life on this Earth, he heard it- Laurel's cry. It was clearly coming from a long way off, but it was still distinctive. Leaping immediately into action, Robert ran toward the sound.

He wasn't sure exactly how long it was before he finally found Laurel, who was busy trying to wrestle a woman's purse away from her. Behind them, a car with shattered windows was parked next to the curb, said windows having clearly gotten that way due to Laurel's cry. She didn't seem like the type to resort to petty theft, but Robert supposed that desperate times called for desperate measures.

"Get away from her!" he shouted, firing an arrow between the two women to force Laurel away from her victim. She backed up, eyes glinting with anger and frustration.

"Run," Robert told the woman, jumping down between her and Laurel. She snatched her purse up from the ground and bolted. Laurel's glare morphed into an expression of deep, seething rage.

"I just can't get away from you, can I?" she spat.

"Nope," Robert replied, shaking his head.

"It's too bad, really," Laurel said. "I'd _love_ to stick around and kill you, but I've got places to be. I can't _wait_ to find out what this Earth's Starling City is like." There was a hint of some threat in her words, and in the few seconds Robert allowed himself to himself to consider what that threat might be, Laurel was diving through the driver's side window of the car by the curb, and the next thing Robert knew, the car, with Laurel inside, was peeling up the street in a screech of tires and a cloud of exhaust. He growled with frustration at her having slipped through his fingers once again, but at least this time he knew where to find her. He was going to have to find his way to this Earth's Starling City.


	3. Chapter 3

"Oliver, you need to see this," Felicity called out as he entered the bunker. She didn't so much as glance away from the computers in front of her. Oliver could only assume that she'd heard the elevator.

"What is it?" he asked, coming to stand behind her chair on the raised platform in the center of the room, his boots thudding against it.

"Looks like there was an Arrow sighting in Central City," Felicity said, gesturing toward the computer monitor in front of her, where she had a news article pulled up. "Apparently, he saved a woman from some metahuman with sonic powers." Oliver frowned.

"That wasn't me," he said.

"I figured as much," Felicity replied. There was a long pause, then she said, "You know, this might not be such a bad thing. Maybe you could use the help."

"Maybe," Oliver conceded. "But we haven't exactly had the best luck with copycat Arrows." In her reflection in the computer monitor, Oliver saw Felicity's expression darken. He realized, too late, that she didn't need the reminder, that the memories of what had happened with Ra's and the League were still fresh and painful in her mind.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, kissing her on top of her head. "I shouldn't have brought that up."

"It's fine," Felicity said, waving off his apology. "You were right. We really haven't had the best luck with that."

"So, what should we do?" Oliver asked, turning to Felicity for answers as he always did in times of uncertainty or trouble.

"Well, you know, it might be nothing," Felicity said, though she didn't sound very sure.

"And if it's not nothing?" Oliver asked.

"I'll keep an eye out for more Arrow sightings that we know aren't you," Felicity said. "If this other Arrow, whoever he is, manages to find his way to Star City, we'll go from there."

"Alright," Oliver said, nodding. "Keep me in the loop."

"Of course," Felicity replied. As Oliver headed for the elevator, she called after him "Are you headed back out?" Her fingers hovered an inch above her keyboard, as if she were preparing herself to settle back into her role as Overwatch. Oliver shook his head.

"I'm having dinner with Dig and Lyla," he said. Felicity smiled, evidently pleased that he and Dig had repaired their friendship.

"Have fun," she said. "Be safe out there."

"If I run into any trouble, you'll be the first to hear about it," Oliver promised, climbing back up onto the platform to give her a kiss goodbye before disappearing into the elevator, leaving Felicity alone with her work.

"There haven't been any more sightings of that Arrow," Felicity informed Oliver when they were working in the bunker a few days later.

"What other Arrow?" Dig asked.

"There was an Arrow sighting in Central City a few days ago," Felicity told him, grimacing sheepishly at the realization that somehow she'd forgotten to loop him in about that.

"But it wasn't me," Oliver put in. "I haven't been in Central City since I helped Barry take down the Reverse Flash last year."

"So we're dealing with a copycat?" Dig asked.

"Looks that way," Felicity said grimly.

"Well, we all know how well that went last time," Dig muttered darkly. Oliver and Felicity nodded. They could all agree that, considering what had happened the last time they had had to deal with a copycat Arrow, the possibility of there being another one certainly didn't bode well.

"You said there haven't been any more sightings of him?" Oliver asked Felicity.

"Not since that first one," Felicity confirmed. "But there _have_ been multiple reports of the sonic powered metahuman he saved that woman from, not in Central City, but here, in Star City."

Hmmm," Oliver said thoughtfully, his eyebrows creasing together as he considered that information.

"Here's the weird part," Felicity went on, "eyewitness accounts and statements from the metahuman's victims describe someone who looks like Laurel." She pulled up a police sketch to corroborate her statement. The person in the sketch did indeed look exactly like Laurel, if with a few minor differences in hairstyle and dress.

"Laurel's not a metahuman," Oliver said bluntly.

"I know," Felicity replied. "That's what makes it so weird. But…" She trailed off.

"But what?" Oliver and Dig prompted in unison.

"Well, it's just that Barry told me that since he closed the wormhole over Central City," Felicity replied, "he's encountered another Flash and another Harrison Wells. From another Earth." Oliver and Dig shared a confused look.

"Another Earth?" Oliver asked, with a tone of voice that seemed to say _And here I thought our lives couldn't get any crazier_.

"It would seem that the multiverse theory is correct," Felicity remarked dryly, but didn't elaborate. After a pause, she continued, "Anyway, it would explain the thing with this metahuman- it's Laurel, but not…_ our_ Laurel."

"Assuming that that's case," Oliver said, "that this metahuman is Laurel from some...other Earth, is there a way to track her, or anyone else from the same place as her?" Felicity shrugged helplessly.

"I don't know," she said. "But I can reach out to the team at STAR Labs. If anyone _would_ know, it's them."

"Good," Oliver said. "Do that. And loop Curtis in as well. The more minds we have working on this, the better." Felicity nodded. She didn't question the fact that he was giving orders rather than making suggestions. That was the way they'd always done this, right from the very beginning.

"And what about you guys?" she asked, referring to Oliver and Dig and the rest of the "boots on the ground" members of the team.

"We'll keep on the way we usually do," Oliver replied. "There's no sense in reacting to a threat we're not even sure is present yet."

"And if we run into the other Laurel?" Felicity asked.

"Or the copycat Arrow?" Dig added.

"We'll deal with it," Oliver answered, voice solemn, countenance firm. "Just like we always do." Felicity and Dig nodded, both grateful to have a plan.


	4. Chapter 4

If there was anything Robert was grateful for as he chased Laurel to Starling City, it was that cities on this Earth, so far, seemed to be in more or less the same geographical locations that they were on his. Laurel had a head start, but at least Robert knew, more or less, how far he needed to travel to catch up to her.

What he hadn't anticipated was the insight this experience was giving him into the lives of the less fortunate that he had spent the last three years of _his_ life defending. Following his encounter with Laurel, he'd had to steal a change of clothes, since he couldn't very well go running around in his Arrow suit, and since he couldn't be sure that this Earth and his used the same currency, and didn't want to find out what would happen if they didn't, the last few days he'd been stealing and begging just to get by. Even the motorbike on which he was currently traveling to Starling City was stolen, though he told himself he'd find a way to return it to its owner if he could. He had gained a new understanding of just how easy he had it, since, on his Earth at least, he was a billionaire and had access to the kinds of resources the people he was supposed to be fighting for could only imagine.

With a self-deprecating sigh, Robert shoved aside the familiar dark thoughts about whether he really had any right to be carrying on with his crusade to help the less fortunate since he couldn't possibly understand what it was that they went through in their day to day lives and refocused on the task at hand. Judging by the snatches of articles he'd glimpsed in newspaper boxes along his journey, Laurel had already reached Starling City, and she was escalating. She needed to be stopped before she did something drastic like holding someone for ransom or robbing a bank.

His journey continued without further pause until he reached the road sign that marked where Starling City began. However, where back home the sign read "Welcome to Starling City" here it read "Welcome to Star City. Renamed in memory of Doctor Ray Palmer". Robert had no idea who Ray Palmer was- on this Earth, at least- or why the city had been renamed in his memory specifically, but the change was certainly interesting, if not entirely relevant to the current situation.

As night fell, Robert began looking for somewhere to spend it. After he had been walking for a while, he realized that his feet were taking him in the direction of the Queen mansion, as if he were a homing pigeon and the mansion his roost. It made a certain amount of sense- it _was_ home where he came from. Truth be told, he was curious to see what his family was like here. Maybe on this Earth, his son was alive. Maybe on this Earth, his family was happy and whole.

As he walked, Robert spotted a hooded figure that he knew must be the Arrow of Star City. The view he got of him was quick, nothing more than a glimpse of his silhouette as he ran through a patch of moonlight, but even that was enough to tell Robert two things- one, that whoever this other Arrow was, he wasn't his counterpart on this Earth, and two, that he had partners- there'd been three other people, a man and two women, running along behind him. He filed that information away in case it might be useful later and continued on.

The moment he stepped foot onto the grounds of the mansion at last, Robert could sense that something was off, in much the same way as he had when he'd first ended up on this Earth. It was silent and still, with an air of abandonment about it, as if it hadn't been lived in in years. What was more, its silhouette against the night sky was the wrong shape, missing the peaks of its roof. It wouldn't be possible to fully see what was wrong until daylight, however, so Robert told himself that it wasn't important right now and set himself to the task of finding somewhere relatively sheltered to sleep. He considered going inside the mansion, but he got a fearful twist in his gut when he approached the building, and that pervasive sense of wrongness rose up to overwhelm him, eventually driving him away, toward the trees at the edges of the mansion's wide, sloping lawn. He climbed one and settled down for the night, feeling himself relax. This was surprisingly familiar- after all, he'd passed away many a night on Lian Yu exactly like this before he'd found that airplane fuselage. Comforted by that familiarity, Robert soon fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.

He woke to the golden light of early morning and the sound of distant birdsong. He stretched, working the knots out of his sleep stiffened muscles, and climbed slowly and carefully down from the tree. Then he stepped out into the open and felt the world tilt beneath him. In the daylight, Robert could finally see what had become of his family home, and it nearly knocked him off of his feet. All that remained of the mansion was a burnt out husk. The walls and other stone structures of the building were still standing, but the roof and interior structures were completely gone, the stones that made up the walls soot stained, drifts of ash and charred wood built up along the steps.

_What _happened _here? _Robert wondered. He suddenly wished he hadn't moved away from the trees, because right now he needed their support. He wasn't sure his sure his legs could hold him up. He only hoped that this Earth's version of his family hadn't been inside the mansion when it had burned. He didn't want to imagine the grisly fate that would have befallen them if they had been.

Knowing there was nothing for him here, Robert was about to leave and head back toward the Star City proper when something on the lawn a few feet in front of him caught his eye. It looked like a lone gravestone, sticking up out of the grass. When he got closer, he saw that that's exactly what it was, though, judging by the state of the grass around it, it wasn't actually marking a grave. Nevertheless, the inscription on it sent a chill down his spine- _Robert Queen. 1958-2007. A leader, a husband, a father, and a pillar of our great city._

So he was dead on this Earth, and judging on the death date on the gravestone, he'd perished with the Queen's Gambit, assuming that event had taken place on this Earth as well as his own. So much for his family being in better shape here, but he told himself that it didn't matter. He needed to get back to the city. He still had work to do. Feeling like a coward, like he'd reverted back to the man he used to be, the man who ran from a hard truth instead of facing it, Robert turned and headed back toward the city proper, leaving the remains of the Queen mansion and his counterpart's gravestone behind him.


	5. Chapter 5

Oliver was beginning to worry. There'd been dozens of reports of the other Laurel over the last few days, and it was clear that she was escalating. Whatever her end goal was, she needed to be stopped before she could achieve it, but they still had no idea how to find her.

"Where are we on finding a way to track the other Laurel?" he asked Felicity.

"I reached out to the team at STAR Labs like I said I would," she replied, "and apparently the atoms of people from her Earth vibrate at a slightly different frequency than ours. Last I heard, they were working on developing something that can detect that difference."

"That sounds like the pseudoscientific technobabble from a bad sci fi movie," Oliver muttered. He would know- he'd watched plenty of them with Felicity. She got a kick out of them.

"Seems like it's our reality now," Felicity said with a noncommittal shrug. "We may as well start getting used to it." Oliver shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other. He knew that Felicity was right, but he was having a hard time wrapping his head around the concept of other Earths and an even harder time fitting that concept into his view of the world and how it worked.

"Speaking of which," Felicity went on, distracting him from his thoughts. "I think I have a theory. About the other Arrow." She stopped talking and studied Oliver's face, eyebrows creased together, lower lip caught between her teeth, as if she were afraid he would silence her. He waved one hand in a circular _Go on_ gesture, trying to put her at ease.

"Well," she said, "what if… what if he's from the same Earth as Laurel's doppelganger?"

"And he followed her here?" Oliver posited.

"That would be the next logical assumption," Felicity agreed, nodding. She paused, then added, "So it stands to reason that if we could find a way to get in touch with him, he might be able to help us with the Laurel situation." She had that tone in her voice that she got when she was trying to lead him toward a specific point without having to state it outright. Oliver, seeing what she was getting at, shook his head.

"I'd rather focus on finding the other Laurel," he stated in a flat tone that brooked no argument. "If and when we do, it's possible the other Arrow may end up coming to us." Felicity nodded thoughtfully. Oliver gave her a few minutes to mull that over before he spoke again. "Would it be possible to find a way to track her that doesn't rely on the team at STAR Labs getting their tech working? It's not that I don't have faith in their abilities, I'm just afraid that the longer it takes to find her, the worse things are going to get."

"Maybe," Felicity said after thinking it over for a bit. "I could write a predictive algorithm based on previous incidents to determine where she's likely to strike next. It shouldn't take more than a few hours to get it up and running." Oliver nodded, but he felt uneasy. He trusted Felicity and her abilities implicitly, but something about relying on a tech based solution while waiting for a different one to become viable felt like asking for something to go wrong.

"And of course I'll keep monitoring police bands so we can try and catch her in the act," Felicity added, noticing Oliver's unease and doing her best to alleviate it.

"Good," Oliver said, his voice slipping into the quiet tone he used when it was just the two of them, when his words were meant for Felicity and Felicity alone of them. Neither of them spoke for a bit, and a pleasant sort of complacency settled between them.

"I'm going to head out," Oliver finally said, shaking himself as if out of a trance and heading toward where he kept his gear.

"Do you want me to call in the others?" Felicity called after him.

"No, I think I'll go solo tonight," he replied, moving back toward the center of the room. Felicity nodded, understanding what was really going on here- he needed to blow off some steam, to work out all his pent-up energy and try to get his head around their new reality, and that was really better accomplished alone.

"Okay," she said. "Be safe out there."

"With you in my ear, I always am," Oliver replied, almost absentmindedly, before disappearing into the elevator.

"Feeling any better?" Felicity asked Oliver once they'd finally made it home for the night. He nodded.

"Much," he said. "I think I'm a little more prepared and able to deal with the concept of other Earths now."

"Good," Felicity replied with a pleased nod. "That's good."

"It all seems horrendously complicated, though," Oliver added.

"Well, the concept of a multiverse has always been that way just by its very nature," Felicity said. "And it's no less so now for having been proven to be true."

"What do you mean?" Oliver asked.

"Look at it this way," Felicity explained. "The multiverse theory states that our universe is just one of many- possibly an infinite number of- universes. And for every event that took place in this universe, there might be one where that event didn't happen, or if it _did_ happen, happened slightly differently. And for every decision we make, there could be a universe where we made a different one. For example, there might be a universe where the Queen's Gambit didn't sink in the North China Sea, or it did, but you weren't on board, because you'd decided to stay home instead of taking that trip with your father. And the existence of Earth-2-"

"'Earth-2'?" Oliver interjected.

"It's what the team at STAR Labs calls it," Felicity said. "This"- she tapped her foot against the ground- "is Earth-1."

"That seems a bit presumptuous," Oliver remarked, one corner of his mouth quirking upwards.

"Yeah, well, they technically discovered it, so they get to name it," Felicity replied. "Anyway, its existence only proves how much there is about the multiverse that we can't possibly know, how many different permutations and combinations might exist." Oliver nodded. There were a few minutes of silence while he processed everything that had been said.

"I have just one more question," he said at last.

"Shoot," Felicity replied.

"Do you think the other Arrow is… the Earth-2 version of me?" Oliver asked. He didn't really have a particular _reason_ for asking, except perhaps morbid curiosity.

"I suppose it's possible," Felicity answered with a shrug. "But there's really no way to be sure without meeting him. Any number of factors that led to the existence of the Arrow could have been different on Earth-2 than here. I mean, for all we know the Arrow of Earth-2 could be your father." She laughed as if she thought that was a ridiculous idea, and Oliver was inclined to agree with her on that. Being the Arrow wasn't something he could imagine his father- any version of his father- being capable of doing.


	6. Chapter 6

"We've got something," Felicity said in Oliver's ear as he finished tying up a criminal for the police to find later, trussed up like a Christmas goose.

"What is it?" he asked, pressing a hand to his chest to activate his comm.

"Bank robbery in progress over on Adams and O'Neil," Felicity replied. "Woman in black leather, matching Laurel's description. Apparently, she killed one of the bank tellers with her cry in order to intimidate the other into opening the vault for her, but not before they hit the silent alarm. Right now, the cops are figuring how to get in there with minimal casualties. The bank was about to close for the night, so thankfully there weren't that many people inside, but still enough to give Laurel-2 hostages she can use to ensure her escape."

"Is Captain Lance there?" Oliver asked. Despite the fact that being a police captain was ostensibly a desk job, he knew that the officers under Lance's jurisdiction would sometimes call him out into the field for particularly difficult or dicey situations, and his presence at the bank would complicate things far more than Oliver was comfortable with.

"It doesn't look like it, no," Felicity replied. A pause, then she added, "At least, not for the moment."

"Good," Oliver said. "I don't want him to find out about the other Laurel just yet. There's no way of knowing how he might react, and the situation is complicated enough without adding that big of an unknown to it."

"Right, well, you'd better get going," Felicity replied. "Or Laurel-2 is going to get away again."

"Right," Oliver said in a rush, remembering himself. He quickly apprised the rest of the team of the situation, and then they were on their way.

At the bank, Oliver had the team split up and surround the building, blocking off all of the other Laurel's possible escape routes before he slipped inside through a back entrance Felicity had found for him, intending to confront the other Laurel alone. He crept past the safety deposit boxes and the vault, now sitting open and empty, until he reached the main room of the bank. Past the counter where the tellers worked, he could just see the other Laurel, pacing around and terrorizing her hostages. A shiver raced down Oliver's spine. Aside from the differences in hairstyle and dress that had been evident in the police sketch of her, she really did look exactly like the Laurel he knew, a fact that was even more apparent in person. It was deeply unsettling to encounter an enemy with the face of someone he knew to be a friend.

Crouching down behind the counter for a moment to consider his next move, Oliver saw the teller the other Laurel had killed, lying in a heap where they had fallen, and the one she'd left alive to open the vault for her, peering over the edge of the counter to watch her as she continued to terrorize the other hostages, holding onto it with a grip gone white-knuckled from fear induced force. They spotted Oliver and opened their mouth to speak. He shook his head and put a finger to his lips to silence them lest they give away his position before he was ready, then vaulted over the counter.

"It's about time you showed up," the other Laurel said, without turning around, the moment his feet hit the bank's marble tiled floor. "I was starting to wonder what it would take to get your attention."

"You did all this to get my _attention_?" Oliver growled, speaking with the low, angry rasp that Felicity referred to as his "Arrow voice", banking on the assumption that the other Arrow, who this Laurel clearly thought he was, did something similar.

"Of course," the other Laurel replied. "We have unfinished-" She turned around to face him at last and abruptly cut herself off mid-sentence at the sight of him.

"You're not him," she said flatly, studying him with her head cocked to one side.

"Expecting someone else?" Oliver asked with a taunting smirk, trying to keep her focused on him.

"There's a certain wannabe Robin Hood I need to kill," the other Laurel said by way of reply. "But no matter. You'll do just as well." She set her stance wide and hit Oliver with a blast of sound so powerful that it knocked him off his feet and pushed him backwards toward the counter behind him. He let out an involuntary cry of pain when he slammed into it, but he managed to get his feet under him when he hit the floor and slowly struggled upright. He swayed a bit as he stood, but quickly recovered his balance.

"How about we take this outside?" he grunted, trying to talk around the pain in his back and sides. He was ninety percent sure he'd either cracked or broken a rib somewhere. "These people are innocent. They were just going about their business when you showed up here. There's no need for them to get any more caught up in this than they already have."

"Sure, why not?" the other Laurel asked. With a mocking grin, she added, "If you can catch me." She turned and ran toward the back entrance. Oliver chased after her, cursing himself for not realizing that she would have known that entrance was there and having someone cover it after he went in. He stumbled out into the alleyway behind the bank at full tilt just in time to see the other Laurel hauling herself up the fire escape of an adjacent building and onto its roof. Oliver continued his pursuit of her without a moment's hesitation, ignoring the voices of Dig and Felicity in his ear, the former imploring him to confirm his location, the latter yelling at him not to go running off without back-up.

Oliver ran for what felt like hours, leaping from rooftop to rooftop, pursuing the swiftly moving shape of the other Laurel, who remained just ahead of him, her long black coat fluttering like wings as she ran. Mocking laughter reached him on the wind roaring in his ears. He skidded to a halt, throwing up a spray of gravel from under his heels. She was _enjoying_ this. It was nothing but a game to her, one he refused to continue playing. Ahead of him, the other Laurel came slowly to a halt, turning on her heel to face him.

"Aw, you're no fun," she said when they were within speaking distance of each other once again, pouting.

"I'm not playing your game anymore," Oliver snarled. "If you're going to try and kill me, fine, but be up front about it.

"Suit yourself," the other Laurel replied with a shrug. She shifted her stance, but now Oliver was wise to what that meant and dropped down into a crouch, and the sonic blast the other Laurel had been intending to hurt him with passed over his head, ruffling his hood but otherwise not affecting him at all. He leapt up and charged the other Laurel, and they spent the next few minutes locked in pitched close quarters battle. Oliver had learned that the other Laurel needed plenty of space to use her cry effectively, and he was determined not to give it to her.

Then he made a mistake. He slipped up for a moment and let her back far enough away from him to get a good shot with her cry, and as he saw her prepare herself to unleash it, he braced himself for the impact. Before the other Laurel could unleash her cry, however, a green-clad shape appeared as if from out of nowhere, throwing itself between the other Laurel and Oliver. The other Arrow- for that's who this must have been- fired an arrow into the roof at the other Laurel's feet, and when she opened her mouth to unleash her cry, this time on them both, no sound came out.

_A sonic dampening arrow_, Oliver thought distractedly. _Wonder why I didn't think of that?_ To his surprise, instead of apprehending the other Laurel now that he'd rendered her powerless, the other Arrow whirled around, bow still drawn, to take aim at him. Oliver couldn't say that he blamed him- he might have done the same in a similar situation- but he nevertheless drew back his own bow and took aim at the other Arrow even as he took aim at him, an automatic response to being threatened.

"It would seem we have ourselves a stand-off," he said dryly, glancing back and forth between the arrow the other Arrow had pointed at him and the one he had pointed at the other Arrow. The person in question didn't respond, didn't move, didn't even _twitch_. Over his shoulder, Oliver saw the other Laurel make her escape and sighed, though it sounded more like a frustrated growl than anything else.

"I'm not your enemy," he said. In an effort to prove it, he lowered his bow, pointing the arrow fitted to its string down at the ground, though he kept it half drawn in case he needed to spring into action again. The other Arrow still didn't move.

"Just who the hell are you, anyway?" Oliver snapped, getting irritated now.

"I could ask the same of you," the other Arrow replied in a flat voice that betrayed no emotion, and Oliver's grip on his bow string faltered for just a moment as he flinched in surprise. That voice. He _knew_ that voice, as well as he knew Dig's, Felicity's, his mother's, his sister's, his own. But it was impossible- the owner of that voice had died nine years ago. Oliver had watched it happen, and yet…

"Dad?" he asked, releasing his grip on his bow to push back his hood and shove his mask downward off of his face. Across from him, the other Arrow fell out of his ready stance and returned the arrow he'd had nocked to his quiver. Then he too pushed down his hood and removed his mask, and suddenly Oliver was staring into the face of his long dead father.

"Oliver?" he asked, his own shock and disbelief mirrored on his face.


	7. Chapter 7

Robert couldn't stop staring. He was aware of Oliver moving, speaking to someone over a commlink, but only very distantly. A million questions raced through his head. How was Oliver even alive? Had someone brought him to the League of Assassins? Was there a Lazarus pit somewhere besides Nanda Parbat that Robert didn't know about? And how had Oliver ended up on this Earth? How long had he been here? The entire nine years he'd been assumed dead? Longer? And what had made him decide to become the Arrow of this Earth?

"I need you to get ahold of Speedy." Oliver's voice halted Robert's racing train of thought. "Tell her to get to the bunker ASAP. There's something she needs to see." There was a pause while he listened to the response from the person on the other end of his comm, then a barely audible beep as he switched it off.

"You need to come with me," he said, turning to Robert. His voice was gruff, his demeanor closed off, not at all like the Oliver Robert remembered. He imagined resurrection followed by nine years as a vigilante would change a person. Without another word, Oliver turned and hurled himself off the roof on which they stood, landing neatly on the one of the next building over. Not seeing any other option at present, Robert followed him. His landing on the next roof over wasn't quite as neat as Oliver's had been- pain flared up in his knees upon his impact, making him stumble. He recovered quickly, determined not to show weakness, and set off after Oliver once more.

Robert lost track of how long he followed Oliver across rooftops, up and down fire escapes, and through alleys and narrow, twisting side streets before they came to a building that he identified as a campaign office, closed up for the night. The light from a nearby street lamp was enough to be able to see that the posters in the building's windows said "Queen for Mayor" above a picture of Oliver. Robert felt a sudden glow of pride. He was pleased to see that not only had Oliver made the best of a less than ideal situation, but he was also trying to make a name for himself on this other Earth.

Oliver's pace didn't falter. He strode toward the front entrance of the building and, after a quick glance around to make sure there was no one else around, yanked the door open and went inside without bothering to check if Robert was still following. Robert, for his part, raced to catch up with him while still keeping a respectful distance, as he could see that he was extremely on edge. Reaching the door, he stopped it with one hand just before it swung all the way closed and slipped through the gap, releasing it once he was through and letting it close behind him. Then he followed his son through the campaign office, their heavy footfalls echoing off the walls of the empty building.

Reaching the back of the office, they came to a halt in front of what appeared to be an ordinary blank wall, at least until Oliver pushed a button somewhere and it slid back to reveal a hidden elevator brightly lit with fluorescent lights, their glow spilling out into the darkness of the empty office. Robert studied the elevator curiously as he followed Oliver into it. Whatever awaited them at the bottom of the shaft promised to be very interesting.

A few minutes later, when the elevator doors slid open, Robert stepped out and did a double take, not at the underground bunker that he'd found himself in- impressive though it was- but at the person seated in a swivel chair before a bank of computers on the raised platform in the center of the room. Her back was to him, but he'd be hard pressed to _not_ recognize his greatest business rival, no matter what angle he was viewing her from. He knew that she had gotten her start in the IT department of Queen Consolidated before building her company from the ground up until it had placed her at the head of a tech empire that rivaled that of Harrison Wells, but Robert found that he simply could not imagine Felicity Smoak anywhere other than a company boardroom. And yet, here she was. She turned at the sound of them entering the room and shot to her feet with a gasp.

"Oh my God," she said in a voice gone quiet with shock. "It's- but he's dead. Isn't he?" From the panic in her voice, Robert could tell that she'd had a not so pleasant introduction to the existence and function of Lazarus pits at some point in the recent past.

"Felicity," Oliver said. His voice was low and smooth and even, and Robert saw the way it made Felicity instantly relax. Gesturing toward him, Oliver added, "Meet the Arrow of Earth-2."

"When I said the Arrow of Earth-2 could be Robert Queen for all we knew, I was _kidding_, damn it!" Felicity shouted up at the ceiling, apparently out of nowhere. It seemed she was taking the universe to task for making the circumstances line up the way they had. Oliver chuckled softly and crossed the room to meet her on the platform. Robert followed, but kept a respectful distance so that the two of them could talk in some semblance of privacy. He could see from the way Oliver leaned into Felicity's space as they talked, the softness of his voice when he spoke to her, that he was in love with her, which surprised him. Felicity, or at least the Felicity he knew, wasn't the type of person that he could ever imagine his son falling for. He didn't really have time to ponder it though, because a moment after the realization came to him, the conversation between Oliver and Felicity died out and they both turned to study him.

Robert saw the blow coming, saw it in the shift in Oliver's stance, the tension in the set of his shoulders, in the shifting of his expression into one of deep, intense resentment and anger. He made no move to block or dodge it, and Oliver's fist smashed into his face, snapping his head back.

"Oliver!" Felicity cried, grabbing his arm and dragging him backward. "What the hell is wrong with you? Didn't we _just_ establish that this isn't your dad?" Oliver shook her off but didn't answer her.

Recovering from the blow, Robert realized something in his haze of pain- Oliver had struck him with his right hand. Unless his memory was completely failing him, his son was left-handed.

"You're not my son," he said dully, feeling the tiny spark of hope that had alit inside him at apparently finding his son alive and well on another Earth die. "You're just his… doppelganger."

"Sorry to disappoint,' Oliver said, his voice an angry growl.

"It seems my counterpart has a lot to answer for," Robert remarked.

"Yeah," Oliver replied bluntly, still in that growl. Before Robert could respond, a voice he recognized called out "Ollie? What's going on?" He and Oliver both turned to see Thea standing by the elevator.

_No, not Thea_, he corrected himself. _Not _my _Thea._

"Dad?" she asked at the sight of him. Her voice trembled like she was about to cry, and it sent a twinge of parental concern through him that he couldn't quite manage to suppress. It didn't matter that this wasn't his daughter, she looked and sounded exactly like her, and the urge to comfort her was so strong that for a moment it overrode his good sense and he found himself moving toward her, realizing that he was doing so only when Oliver put an arm out to stop him. He watched as he moved off the platform and toward his sister, laying a hand on her shoulder and guiding her off to somewhere out of sight, presumably to have the same conversation with her about what was going on that he'd had with Felicity a few minutes ago.

After a while, Oliver and Thea returned from whatever hidden corner of the bunker they'd gone to to have their conversation. Thea studied Robert for a long moment, her round blue eyes glimmering with unshed tears, before she asked the question on everyone's minds- "What do we do now?"


	8. Chapter 8

When Oliver went looking for the Arrow after changing out of his gear, he found him holding the extra sweatshirt Felicity had found for him in his hands, looking lost.

"Dad," he started to say, but the word died in his throat. For all that he looked and sounded exactly like him, this wasn't his father. But he still needed to get his attention, and settled for clearing his throat obtrusively.

"I don't know what to call you," he explained when the Arrow turned to look at him. "Arrow, or Robert, or-"

"Robert's fine," the Arrow interjected. He was silent for a moment, then added, "Obviously, I can't expect you to call me Dad."

"Right," Oliver agreed. "Robert it is then." Awkward silence settled between them. Robert shifted the sweatshirt in his hands around in his grip, and Oliver caught a glimpse of the diagonal slash of a scar across his palm.

"How did you get that?" he asked, his curiosity getting the better of him for a moment, indicating the scar with a nod. Robert turned his hand over and examined it like he was seeing it for the first time. That, Oliver understood- he'd gotten so used to the way his own scars marked his skin that oftentimes he forgot about them until someone else specifically pointed them out.

"I tried to pull an arrow out of my leg when I first washed up on Lian Yu and sliced my hand open on it," Robert said in answer to Oliver's question.

"But who put the arrow _in_ your leg in the first place?" Oliver asked. He didn't know why the follow up felt necessary, only that it did.

"His name was Yao Fei," Robert replied.

"Oh," Oliver said. The mention of Yao Fei caught him off guard. He hadn't been expecting to have anything quite so concrete in common with his father's doppelganger.

"I had a Yao Fei too," he said after a moment. "Except mine shot me in the shoulder." His hand came to rest over the spot where the scar left behind by Yao Fei's arrow would have been had it been visible.

"But he told you he did it to save you, right?" Robert asked.

"Right," Oliver confirmed. The two Arrows laughed together for a moment, finding the humor in that experience as only one who'd actually been through it could. In the next moment, however, their laughter died out. That brief instance of humor couldn't last against all the negative things trying to smother it.

"You must have questions," Robert said after a time. Oliver shook his head.

"I'm not interested in comparing notes," he said. "Whatever happened to you that led to you becoming the Arrow, I don't need to know anything more about it. I don't need to know the ways your experience was similar to or different than mine."

"And before you ask," he went on, seeing Robert about to reply, "I don't want to know about _him_ either."

"My Oliver," Robert said, evidently seeking confirmation. Oliver nodded.

"Why?" Robert asked. "You're not curious?"

"My only priority right now is finding and stopping the other Laurel," Oliver replied. "Anything else is unimportant at the moment." Robert nodded in understanding.

"On my Earth, they call her Black Siren," he said. "And I don't know how much help I'll be in tracking her down, but at least it might be easier with two of us." He offered Oliver a smile, which he found himself unable to return.

"Technically, with Dig, Laurel, Thea, Curtis, and Felicity, there's seven of us looking for Black Siren," he said, because for some reason he felt like being contrary, tallying it up in his head.

"True," Robert conceded. "That many people working on the same problem would make it easier to solve, though, wouldn't it?" Oliver shrugged.

"Maybe," he said. "Only time will tell." Silence fell between them for the third time since their conversation had started. It seemed that no matter how hard they tried to avoid or ignore them, the things they weren't saying were still getting in the way of them having a normal, semi casual conversation.

"You know," Oliver said at last, trying to at least somewhat maintaining a conversation this time, "I'm pretty sure Felicity gave you that because she thought you might want to change out of your jacket and hood." He gestured toward the sweatshirt that Robert was still holding.

"Right, of course," Robert said, seeming startled. He reached up to strip his hood- Yao Fei's hood, Oliver realized, able to place it at last- away from over his jacket, but paused, his hands hovering an inch away from its rough green fabric.

"I suppose I don't need to worry about your reaction to my scars," he said.

"They can't be any worse than mine," Oliver replied, voice flat and devoid of emotion. In the few moments between Robert taking off his jacket and putting on the sweatshirt, however, he couldn't help but stare. It was strange to see someone with his father's face with a body like the one he saw every time he looked in the mirror- corded with muscle and criss crossed by scar tissue all over.

"You'll have to tell me more about her," Robert said, abruptly and apparently from out of nowhere. "Your Felicity, I mean. She seems completely different from the Felicity on my Earth, and to be honest, I'm fascinated."

"There'll be time for that later," Oliver insisted, though he smiled in spite of himself at the mention of Felicity. "Right now there's really only one thing I want to ask of you."

"And that is?" Robert asked.

"Can you show me how to make those sonic dampening arrows?" Oliver said, answering his question with another. Robert smiled.

"Follow me," he said, beckoning Oliver forward, toward his workbench, which he found himself strangely unsurprised to learn that he'd already located and identified. Maybe, just maybe, he had even more in common with the Arrow of Earth-2 than he thought.


	9. Chapter 9

"So, tell me," Robert began, shouting to be heard over the whirring roar of the angle grinder, as Oliver was hard at work making sonic dampening arrows with which to stop Black Siren and had been for the past several hours since Robert had shown him how to do so. When he switched it off and turned to look at him, Robert went on, "What was my counterpart on this Earth like?" Oliver glared at him.

"I told you I didn't want to talk about that," he growled.

"Indulge an old man his morbid curiosity," Robert replied smoothly, spreading his hands in a placating gesture. "He must have done something pretty terrible for the sight of his face to make you want to smash your fist into it."

"He didn't _do_ anything," Oliver said, still growling and still glaring. "That's the problem. He was a coward. He worked side by side with the people who were poisoning his city, knew exactly what they were doing, and he did _nothing_ to stop it. And in the end, he decided that it was easier to place the weight of his sins on my shoulders was easier than to fix what he helped break himself. He sacrificed himself for me, gave his life for mine, and I'll always be grateful to him for that, and I'll always love him because he's my father, but I have to wonder if I ever really knew him. If he was ever, even once, the good man that I thought he was." Robert listened to all of this in silence, sensing that Oliver had been keeping it bottled up for a long time now and needed the catharsis he was getting from sharing it now. In Oliver's words, Robert recognized himself, recognized the man he had been before he had shipwrecked on Lian Yu and the need for survival had forced him to change. It seemed that the more some things changed, the more others stayed the same.

"I'm sorry," he said, and in the back of his mind he wondered if the Robert Queen that this Oliver had known had ever once taken the time to apologize for his actions. Considering that that would have involved taking responsibility for them in the first place, somehow he doubted it.

"Why are you sorry?" Oliver asked, and though his voice had softened a little, he still spoke in a growl. "_You_ didn't do anything."

"I know, I know," Robert replied. "But the thing is… before Lian Yu, before the need to survive _forced_ me to change, I was just like your father. And I realize that I… I failed my son, the same way your father failed you. And it's too late for either of us to make up for that- your father is dead, and so is my son. That's why I'm sorry." Oliver nodded stiffly, his jaw clenched. He took a moment to gather up the dozen or so sonic dampening arrows he had made and strode over to where he kept his gear. Lifting his quiver free of the hooks from which it was hanging, he placed the new arrows inside it, running their fletching through his fingers for a moment as if to familiarize himself with their feel so that he could find them quickly when he needed them. Robert had followed him from his work table to here and had watched him at this simply because he hadn't known what else to do, and he could clearly see the tension in Oliver's frame and the stiffness of his movements. He was clearly fighting an internal battle to keep a handle on his emotions.

"I hurt you," Robert murmured. "I'm sorry."

"Stop apologizing!" Oliver snapped suddenly, rounding on him. His voice echoed through the bunker, and Robert was suddenly grateful that they were alone. "This isn't about you, alright? It has _nothing_ to do with you. It's just…" He trailed off and took a moment to get control of himself, then continued, "The stuff I told you, about my father… I've never shared it with anyone. Not Thea, not Felicity, _no one_. And I've been carrying that anger around for so long that it's proving difficult to let go of. That's all." Robert nodded.

"I understand," he said softly. Before he could say anything else, however, their conversation was cut short by the sound of the elevator doors sliding open, and a moment later Felicity's voice called out "Guys? Where are you?"

"We're over here!" Oliver called, and a moment later Felicity appeared around the corner, her approach preceded by thump of her boot heels against the concrete floor.

"Hey," Oliver mumured in greeting when he saw her. It didn't escape Robert's notice how her presence made Oliver instantly relax, the tension disappearing from his posture as if it had never been there at all. "Where'd you go?"

"To dinner with Laurel and Thea," Felicity replied. "I figured I should give you guys some space."

"Hmmm," Oliver mumbled, then fell silent.

"I didn't realize how late it was," Robert remarked after a moment of quiet.

"I don't blame you," Felicity said. She seemed to have warmed up to him rather quickly, but so far that seemed to be par for the course for this Felicity. "It can be hard to keep track of time down here sometimes, underground with no natural light. But yeah, it's almost"- She glanced at Oliver's watch- "midnight. Wow. Even _I _didn't realize it was _that_ late."

"We should probably call it a night then, if it's that late," Oliver put in. Turning to Robert, he asked "Are you going to be okay down here by yourself tonight?"

"I believe so, yes," Robert replied, nodding. "I've spent the night in far worse places." Oliver didn't respond to that, though Robert sensed that he understood it because of his own similiar experiences. He took a few minutes to show Robert where to find the things he would need for the night, then left with Felicity, leaving Robert alone with his thoughts.


End file.
